Technologies

9 hidden Amazon Prime perks that can save you money and make your life easier

There’s more to your membership than Prime Video and fast shipping.

Amazon is a go-to for almost anything, especially during the pandemic. A few clicks and less two days later, what you need is at your door. But on top of fast shipping, Prime Video and Prime Music, for Amazon Prime members, the trillion-dollar tech titan has dozens of services only a few clicks away. Some of the other less familiar perks buried in the vastness of Amazon’s site. We’re here to help pick the best of the bunch so you don’t get lost in the search tool.

Amazon expanded its sphere during the pandemic — visits to its site reportedly increased by 37% from February 2020 to January 2021 — as it pushed new programs, including Amazon Sidewalk, the auto-on broadband-sharing program for Amazon Echo speakers and Ring devices. But its shopping experience continues to be its bread and butter.

But avid Amazon customers may not know about a few of the hidden deals and discounts that aren’t advertised as much. Prime members can get free books and save big books if they know where to look. We’ve hacked through Amazon’s jungle of services to find the most useful (and surprising) Amazon programs that you can use today.

1. Over 2,500 free books and magazines using Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited

Prime Reading is your own personal lending library that comes with a Prime membership. With a rotating selection of over 2,500 books and magazines, you can access Prime Reading with the Kindle app on your desktop or portable device or your Kindle e-reader. This Amazon service also lets you share titles with members of your household. Some books in Prime Reading come with Audible narrations so you can multitask while you listen.

Prime Reading also includes First Reads, which gives members a sneak peek at books before they’re released to the general public.

Kindle Unlimited is a $10-a-month subscription service separate from an Amazon Prime account. It gives you unlimited access to more than 1 million ebooks and up to three magazine subscriptions on a Kindle device or Kindle app.

2. Trade in used devices for gift cards and get discounts for preowned products

Amazon is boarding the train to sustainability station, and it’s something you can directly benefit from. With Amazon Trade-In, you can send back your used electronics in exchange for Amazon gift cards. Make sure to check on the eligibility of each product — some trade-in options are only available for a limited time.

Amazon Renewed gives you access to products that may have been opened but unused by their original owners, or were refurbished. Amazon assures that these preowned items work and look like new, coming with the Amazon Renewed Guarantee. A variety of products and brands are available, even from premium names like Apple and Vitamix.

3. Find Amazon Warehouse discounts

Amazon Warehouse resells millions of like-new or preowned items that have been returned by customers. Some of the products only had their boxes opened by original purchasers before they were sent back, unused, so they’re resold at a discount. While there’s no regular manufacturing warranty on these products, they are backed by Amazon’s 30-day return policy and 90-day renewed item return policy.

To read more about how you can get the most out of Amazon Warehouse, check out our guide on shopping for the best Amazon Warehouse deals.

4. Sift through overstocked items in Amazon Outlet

Just like a brick-and-mortar outlet store, but without the gas money. The Amazon Outlet features overstocked items and other products at discounted prices. Like at an outlet, you can find premium brands, items under $10 and products ranging from home furniture and clothing to books and pet supplies. It’s a good place to stay within a budget while being the first owner, unlike some items in the Amazon Warehouse.

Keep in mind that although the online shopping experience is convenient, just like an outlet, the best deals can take sifting to find. Luckily, you can do it from the couch.

5. Land limited-time discounts through Lightning Deals

Amazon’s Lightning Deals are a promotion where a product or service is on sale for a short period of time or until it’s sold out. You can find them all throughout the site, but especially on Prime Day and in Today’s Deals. On Prime Day, Lightning Deals are only for Prime members.

There is one lightning deal per customer until the promotion ends or all the deals are claimed by other shoppers. You can join a waitlist for a deal, but keep in mind that these discounts are extremely time-sensitive, so grab them fast. Unless refreshing the page over and over is your thing, these deals aren’t necessarily the tool to find something specific because of their fleeting nature and limited availability.

6. 5GB of photo storage with Amazon Photos

Amazon’s online shoebox for photos and videos offers secure and unlimited full-resolution photo storage plus 5GB of video for Prime members. To use this feature, you can choose to manually or automatically upload media in the Amazon Photos app. You can personalize the displays on Amazon devices like Fire TV, Echo Show and Fire tablets as long as you have the app. There are also ways to create keepsakes using the pictures you upload, such as custom cards and prints.

With the Family Vault perk, up to five family members can share in the same plan. If you want more beyond what Prime offers, there are paid plans available. If you choose to switch — which can be done anytime — there is a 100GB option for $2 per month and 1TB plan for $7 per month.

7. Share Prime benefits with loved ones using Amazon Household

Sharing is caring, and Amazon Household lets you extend access to Prime benefits and digital content with others. Using Household, share your Prime account with:

Up to two adults, each with their own Amazon account. Adults can manage accounts of teens and children.
Up to four teens (ages 13 through 17). Teens can have their own Amazon login to stream content and shop with parent approval.
Up to four children (children can’t shop on Amazon).

8. Get discounts on Whole Foods hauls

Healthy shopping can rack up the number at the bottom of the receipt. But if you enter your email address, phone number or scan the QR code on your Whole Foods Market app at checkout during your next grocery haul, Prime members receive discounts on select products.

Blue tags indicate sales exclusive to Prime members, while yellow tags mean an extra 10% off of an item already on sale. This gets you discounts on weekly bestsellers, including produce, packaged goods and beauty products, but note that it excludes alcohol. The few cents saved on items may seem insignificant individually, but savings do add up at the end of the shopping trip.

Also, if you don’t want to make the trip across town, Amazon offers two-hour delivery of groceries for free, as long as you meet the minimum purchase amount. But if you don’t mind the drive, there are also one-hour pickup windows depending on your location — just remember to check in with the Amazon app to see if you need to enter the store.

9. Handpick a wish list with Prime’s wedding registry

If the big day is coming up, Amazon’s wedding registry can get a gift wish list set up for everything from daily essentials to group presents. Amazon can help you cover all the gifting bases, and that makes it a convenient option for you and your wedding guests.

The registry includes lists of editors’ picks and bestsellers to help you sort through Amazon’s options, while the browsing feature can inspire new ideas or highlight something you may have forgotten about. You can also buy any item that’s left on the registry for 20% off — which can be returned within 180 days if you decide you don’t like it.

For more, here are our picks for the best Alexa devices and which e-reader is right for you.

Technologies

Microsoft Is Testing Letting Copilot AI Interact With Your Whole Desktop

The new feature for Microsoft’s Copilot AI will give it greater access to the contents of your screen.

Microsoft has confirmed an upcoming expansion to its Copilot AI chatbot’s screen-sharing abilities: Soon it will be able to process your entire desktop, not just certain parts of it.

The company said Tuesday that this expansion of Copilot’s Vision capabilities has begun public testing. This update, now rolling out to the company’s Windows Insider program testers, will allow the AI chatbot to view, process and react to all aspects of a user’s desktop, where beforehand it was limited to specific apps or windows.

With this update in place, Copilot should be to process and react to multiple windows and apps at the same time. Microsoft touted the ability for it to assist with all aspects of a project you might be working on.

The Vision feature can be activated by selecting the «glasses» icon and selecting which desktop you’d like to share, and can be closed out by hitting «Stop» or «X» in the composer.

«When you share your desktop (or any specific browser or app window), Copilot can see what you see and talk to you about it in real time,» Microsoft’s blog post said. «It can help analyze content, provide insights, and answer your questions, coaching you through it aloud. Get tips on making improvements to your creative project, help with improving your resume, or guidance while navigating a new game.»

Technologies

Smart Cameras Power a Robot Umpire at MLB All-Stars for the First Time. Here’s How the Challenges Went

The auto-umpire system has debuted and is on track for regular season use, but accuracy could be an issue.

If umpires draw your ire for bad calls, you may soon have a new target: Major League Baseball used its ABS, or Automated Ball-Strike System, to call pitches at the July 15 All-Star Game for the first time. If trials this season go well, it will probably be adopted for the 2026 regular season. But challenges against the camera had an unusually high rate of success.

The ABS uses Hawk-Eye cameras, a technology increasingly common in games with high-speed objects. The cameras judge how a ball travels — in this case, over the strike zone — and are equipped to make a preliminary call.

A human umpire, along with batters and pitchers, have a couple of seconds to review the footage and challenge a call if they think the automated system was wrong. It’s a system the MLB has experimented with since 2019 and is finally ready to bring to the national stage.

This approach has caused some controversy, particularly because the Hawk-Eye cameras are programmed to see the strike zone very differently from human umpires. Instead of the standard cube shape that’s underpinned strike zone knowledge for decades, the ABS uses a two-dimensional rectangle standard that’s automatically adjusted to extend between 53.5% and 27% of the batter’s height. Batters are measured before each game.

Those worried about discrepancies now have new fuel for their worries. In the July 15 game, which the National League won in a home run derby after nine innings ended with a tie, four out of five challenges to the ABS and umpire Dan Iassogna’s combined work were successful. That’s much higher than the ABS spring training test, where teams won only around 50% of their challenges.

The MLB hasn’t revealed definitive plans on whether the ABS could replace umpires altogether, but at this time the human-based, real-time reviews from the umpire appear to be an integral part of the system.

The league did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 17, #297

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for July 17, No. 297.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

My blue group hint for today’s Connections: Sports Edition is geared toward Saturday Night Live fans, but if you know your basketball, you should be fine. I think the green group is even easier than the yellow group, but that might depend on how much time you’ve spent on the water. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: WKRP.

Green group hint: Ahoy!

Blue group hint: The only prescription is more cowbell.

Purple group hint: Fancy fores.